


Falling Into Away

by rabid_plotbunny



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, M/M, NOT a time-travel fic, Sephiroth whump, and not at the same time, it's the Planet's fault!, kinda canon-compliant?, not sure what to call it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2020-05-12 03:17:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19220470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabid_plotbunny/pseuds/rabid_plotbunny
Summary: Sephiroth had to admit, after the initial rush of euphoria that came from being cleansed of the insidious darkness that was Jenova's influence and having his thoughts be once again entirely his own, that death was nothing like he'd thought it would be.





	1. Chapter 1

So this was being dead.

Sephiroth had to admit, after the initial rush of euphoria that came from being cleansed of the insidious darkness that was Jenova's influence and having his thoughts be once again entirely his own, that it was nothing like he'd thought it would be.

Granted, his own death and whatever might come after it wasn't something he'd spent a lot of time contemplating.

He didn't really know what he'd expected, but knew for certain that _this_ wasn't it. This... endless flowing green all around him, as far as he could see. Wasn't he supposed to somehow become part of it when he died? To fade away? While a part of him protested that end, that final dissolution of self, another part of him welcomed it if only because then he would finally _belong_ somewhere. He was so tired of being the only one like him, so tired of always standing alone because no one ever dared to approach him.

Well, almost no one.

Angeal and Genesis had dared, had convinced him to open up to them even just a little, and tentatively, cautiously, he had. Only to slam those doors shut again against the pain of abandonment and betrayal.

Zack had dared, had battered away at Sephiroth's stubbornly-closed emotional doors, at his carefully-constructed barriers. The stubborn man had worn away at his defenses for so long and with such cheerful goodwill that he barely noticed when they started giving way, when things started to change between them, until he realized one day that they could be called friends. Not _close_ friends, not yet, but not distant friends, either. The realization sent a spike of emotion surging through him, turbulent in its confusion, pleasure that someone had cared enough to try despite his own constant rebuttal, fear that they had somehow managed. Would this end the same as his last friendships had, leaving behind nothing but the pain of betrayal?

It did, apparently, but ironically enough, this time the betrayal had come from his part. He could see that now; now that her voice, Jenova's voice, the not-Mother's voice, was gone from him, her influence broken. He could see how she had twisted his thoughts, how he had turned on the one person he should have trusted above all others. He remembered how Zack had never stopped trying to get to him, to break him out of her influence, right up until he'd shoved the Masamune into his gut and flicked him away like he was nothing, like he had sullied the gleaming blade. As if everything that had come before, everything that had passed between them, had been nothing but a bad dream, a set-up for a fall.

He would have banged his head against something hard at the realization of his own stubborn stupidity if there had been any such surface where he was.

He hadn't thought that he could be that stupid, that he had craved a mother figure at all, let alone strongly enough to latch on to the first being who presented themselves for the role, even if they were what amounted to an evil space alien. How had he never sensed that possible instability in himself? How had Shinra's psychological evaluations missed it? The one time he was truly tested, and he cracked like a nut.

Wow. Way to go, Sephiroth.

He remembered the way he had burned the town. Remembered how he had slaughtered those who stood between him and the reactor no matter who they were or whether or not they were trying to flee. Fire and blood everywhere; dancing orange and pooling red, and always the voice of not-Mother in his head, urging him on, feeding the growing insanity inside him until his own thoughts were so jumbled and confused that he was wide open to anything she told him.

She wanted death and destruction, revenge on the Planet and all those who lived on it, and like a good little puppet he tried to give it to her. Looking back on it now, he couldn't believe he'd gotten as far as he had, that he had come as close to _succeeding_ as he had.

Hooray for Sephiroth, the Hero of Wutai, and the one who almost destroyed the Planet. Who _had_ managed to turn Midgar into so much scrap metal and bodies.

Yay.

Shamed embarrassment ran through him, flushed in his face and he instinctively lowered his head, hiding his reddened face behind his hair. Not that there was anyone around to see him. He was alone again.

Wait. Shouldn't Zack be around there somewhere? Zack was dead like him, after all.

Oh. Maybe his killing the man had been the last straw and the brunet had finally given up on trying to befriend him? He couldn't blame him, really. He wouldn't be feeling quite so kindly towards someone who'd run him through either.

Well, that wasn't exactly true. He didn't hold any bad feelings towards Zack’s little friend Cloud, and the boy had managed to both run him through at the reactor in Nibelheim, heave him over the edge towards the pool below, _and_ somehow survive his own wounds and go on to actually finish him off at last even as Meteor hung low in the sky. 

No, he didn't hold any resentment towards the blond. If anything, he was grateful for it. He didn't want the Planet destroyed. He didn't want its people destroyed. He didn't want to be evil, and he _certainly_ didn't want to be Jenova's puppet. His death had ended all that, had freed him, and he was grateful.

But that didn't bring Zack back to him, did it now?

Or, wait. What if it wasn't Zack's fault? What if he wasn't here because he'd done what Sephiroth had expected to do and dissolved into the Lifestream? It seemed odd that Zack would fade away, though, and that he himself would remain coherent. He was the one that cracked under pressure, after all. You'd think he wouldn't hold together for a split second there. But Zack....

He didn't want to think about Zack being dissolved, being gone forever. To think about Zack not being Zack anymore. Even Zack being whole yet ignoring him was better than that.

So he was back to where he had started. Alone again. Presumably forever, or until he lost his sense of self and dissolved. Then he'd be a glowing green speck for the rest of eternity, because he didn't see the Planet allowing him to have another go at possibly destroying it. Not that he wanted to, but he didn't think his intentions would count for much, considering his track record.

And would it be so bad, really? To dissolve? To finally be part of _something_ , even if he no longer had the consciousness to really realize it? To finally be able to let go, to stop fighting? He was tired of that. He'd never had a choice about it, either, really. It was what he had been created for and so that was what he did.

He didn't know how much of the information he'd read down in the basement of the mansion in Nibelheim he could trust, but even ignoring it all, his own memories reminded him of what he was. He'd always been Hojo's project. Even his earliest memories involved needles and pain. He'd been made to be a soldier, a weapon. The _perfect_ weapon. He'd barely grazed puberty when he'd been sent to Wutai to bathe in the blood of those Shinra ordered conquered. He'd never been free of the blood, the death, since. He'd not even managed to get away from Hojo and his damned experiments. 

He'd never been given a choice.

No one had ever sat him down and asked him 'Sephiroth, what do _you_ want to do?'. It had always been orders, orders, orders. Never choices.

Why should death be any different?

And so he drifted, resigned to his powerlessness over his fate, yet determined to hang on to himself for as long as he could. It was nice, to be himself, with his own thoughts, without orders. He was at a bit of a loss as to what exactly he should be doing, but there wasn't much to do in the Lifestream besides float and listen to the voices all around him.


	2. Chapter 2

He didn't know how long he'd simply drifted there. Long enough to miss having a book to read, or the Masamune to polish. He'd never been much for idle time; most of his hours filled with paperwork, training, missions, or texts about warfare and tactics.  


He didn't know how long he'd simply _been_ there, drifting on the sea of green, occasionally tuning in to the voices around him, when he felt what could only be considered a disturbance in the flows around him. He opened his eyes, not quite sure when he'd closed them, and turned toward the source.  


Stared.  


Was that...?  


"Whoo hoo!" came the excited shout.  


It was. He could only drift there and stare at the sight before him, amusement running through him though he doubted there was even a lip-twitch to betray its presence.  


Zack was there, whole, dressed in what had to be the _loudest_ pair of swim shorts Sephiroth had ever had the misfortune of seeing. He was laughing and apparently having a great time _surfing_ on the waves of the Lifestream. Not too far from Sephiroth himself, sitting under a beach umbrella that he _knew_ hadn't been there a moment ago, was a brown-haired girl in a pink bikini and, of all things, clunky brown work boots. She was laughing and cheering Zack on, and there was a small white scar on her back, matched by a similar one on her chest.  


He knew her, her face coming to him from among the jumbled memories of his quest to destroy the Planet. He had given her that scar. Well, technically he had given her the wound where the scar now was; the wound that had killed her. She was the Cetra girl who had journeyed with Cloud and his little band of followers. The one he had been convinced was the vilest of traitors for siding with the humans against he and Jenova, who he had thought Cetra at the time.   


He knew better than that now. Jenova was no more Cetra than Zack's rubber duckie, Melvin.  


He didn't know what to think about her being so close to him. Didn't she hate him? Resent him, at least, for cutting her life short? He backed away discreetly, not wanting to do any more damage than he already had.  


Not subtly enough.  


She turned, saw him.  


He froze, unable to do anything but stare at her and wait for the accusations and condemnation to start flying.  


Then she smiled at him. "Hello," she said simply. "Zack's been looking forward to seeing you again. The real you."  


He blinked. He didn't know what he was supposed to do or how he was supposed to answer her. Anger and accusation he could deal with; could shield himself from it, shunt it away like nothing. He didn't know how he was supposed to act around her, what he was supposed to say. ' _Hello, nice to meet you. Sorry I ran you through before. I was insane at the time and the evil space alien_ said _she was my mother...?_ '  


He doubted that would go over very well.  


He said nothing.  


Zack cursed suddenly and they both looked over in time to see a wave of Lifestream rise up and come crashing down on him, sending the surfboard one way and him another.  


Sephiroth watched as the surfboard dissolved into hundreds of tiny green lights, returning to the Lifestream, and Zack suddenly went from _there_ to _here_ with no warning. He certainly hadn't walked over. He could teleport...? He supposed there was no reason it wouldn't be possible. No matter how solid he seemed, Sephiroth knew that he wasn't, not really, and that normal laws of physics didn't really apply here. He'd have to look into that later.  


"Hey, Seph!" Zack greeted, ambushing the former General with a giant Zack-hug before going over to stand beside Aerith, grinning. “I've... _We've_ got some great news for you, buddy!"  


Sephiroth looked from Zack to Aerith and back, blue-green eyes narrowing slightly as he observed them. The irrepressible grin on the spiky-haired brunet’s face, the almost-glowing happiness from the Cetra girl, their joined hands. Shook his head even as one hand rose unthinkingly to pinch at the bridge of his nose as he came to the only conclusion that made any sense. Not that that was saying much. " _Zack_. You are the _only_ person I know who could somehow manage to get a girl pregnant while in the Lifestream."  


Aerith's face went red almost instantly, Zack's joining it bare moments later.  


"Hey! That's not it!" A pause. He looked to Aerith. "It's not, is it?"  


Aerith shook her head, her green eyes still wide in shock, momentarily unable to speak.  


"There, see? Honestly, Seph, I don't know where you get these ideas, sometimes...."  


Sephiroth waited for a long moment, but when Zack continued to ramble on about Sephiroth and his strange expectations, he decided a reminder was in order. "Zack. If that's not it, then what is your so-called 'great news'?"  


"You're going back! Isn't that great?"


	3. Chapter 3

Sephiroth blinked. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

Aerith smiled sweetly. "The Planet has decided that since you've never really had a life of your own, had your choices stolen from you before you were even conceived, that it’s going to give you a second chance. It's sending you back. And not through rebirth as usual, but as yourself, as you are now. Well, not _exactly_ as you are now. More like how you were a few years ago, before Nibelheim, but like now in that there will be no Jenova influence on you any more. You will be free to make your own decisions, live your own life." Then she trailed off into vague, distracted musings on things that _might_ be different without Jenova’s influence, or might not since he had been altered on a cellular level and _that_ wouldn’t change.

He listened with half an ear, filing away her rambling for later contemplation, and focused on what he considered the meat of her previous train of thought.

"A second chance?" he asked, cutting in to her babble without remorse.

"Yes," she said, meeting his gaze with her own, green eyes serene.

"You're lying," Sephiroth stated with certainty, arms crossed over his chest, his face blank, impassive. "After what I did, there is no way that the Planet would ever decide to send me back. Especially not as myself."

"That's not true. It knows that it wasn't your fault. Do you think it doesn't? It knows how you were manipulated, controlled-"

"How I tried to destroy it? Surely it hasn't forgotten that part."

"That wasn't you. It knows that by that point Jenova was so far in control that you yourself might as well have not existed at all. It knows that Meteor was _her_ doing, not yours."

"But-"

"Give it up, Seph," Zack chimed in. "You're arguing with a _planet_ , here. It can out-stubborn even you. Just accept that it's giving you another chance and get on with your life! Go and _live_ ; get on with your life. Maybe get a girlfriend. Have tons of cute silver-haired babies with her...."

"Get on with my life? How could I possibly do that? Even if the Planet itself has forgiven me - and don't think that I for one moment actually believe such a preposterous notion - the people living on it most certainly have _not_. Do you really think that they would simply accept my return? That they would be stupid enough to believe ' _Oh, sorry about almost destroying the planet. It wasn't me, it was really an evil space alien controlling my body. No hard feelings?'_ " He snorted. "And a girlfriend? Honestly, Zack...."

"What? Look at you! You're a great catch! Oh. Unless you'd rather find yourself a boyfriend instead. That's all right, too. There won't be any cute babies if you do that, though. Well, not without some _major_ lab-time, anyway." He grinned suddenly. "You know, I bet you'd look good pregnant, with your belly out to _here_ all full of baby...."

"You're insane. There's no other explanation. You. Are. Insane."

"Am not! Tell him, Aerith! Don't you think he'd look hot pregnant?" He gave her the Puppy Eyes.

They didn't work; having had them turned a few too many times in her direction had granted her an immunity of sorts. She only sighed and shook her head in exasperation, though her eyes sparkled with barely held back humor. "Actually, I agree with _him_. Sometimes, Zack, I'm just not sure _what_ to do with you."

"But you love me anyways."

"Of course, silly!"

What followed was a session of lovey-dovey mush that made Sephiroth want to be ill. Or at least that's what he told himself as _something_ twinged inside him with every cutesy word and phrase, every loving glance the other two shared. He looked away, but could not block out the sounds. He did his best to ignore the vague empty ache inside, tried not to be sick as he waited for them to remember he was there. Maybe he should just leave them alone and let them find him again when they were done?  
  


 

He still wasn't entirely sure just _what_ to think of what they had told him, what the Planet had apparently decided. He just couldn't believe that it was that easy. He knew that the planet was full of people who had been just as badly off as he had been, even if mad scientists and evil space aliens _weren't_ involved in their case. The Planet hadn't sent any of _them_ back as they had been before they died, like it was apparently going to do for him. If it was sending him back, why do it that way, instead of the apparently more common rebirth? Why was _he_ so special?

Aerith had tried to explain it to him, but even she could only be so clear, since the Planet apparently wasn't exactly sharing its full reasoning. All she had been certain of was that he would be returned as he was, full-grown and cleansed of Jenova's taint. She had warned him that some of the skill that placed him above the other, regular, SOLDIERs might have been due to the Jenova in his system and might be gone. But then again, she had also said that while he was safe from Jenova's meddling, her cells had fused with integral parts of his genetic makeup and could not be removed, even by the Planet. So he might still be able to access those skills after all.

He would know the first time he tried to use them, he supposed.

He had asked, if a little hesitantly since it _was_ Zack's girlfriend and he had killed her already, why the Planet didn't decide to send _Zack_ back instead. Surely, the brunet would be a much better choice! Everyone would be happy to see him, and he didn't have the stigma of having tried to destroy the world hanging over him.

Aerith just shook her head and told him that she didn't know why the Planet did what it did, she just passed along the message.

So there they were, standing there in the Lifestream; Aerith in a pink dress and those same heavy boots, and Zack back in his familiar SOLDIER uniform. Aerith had her hands clasped and her eyes closed as she gathered the energy she would need to send him back. Zack stood close beside her, offering the occasional Zackish grin to Sephiroth. Sephiroth, for his part, stood there awkwardly. He had after all killed both her and Zack in his madness. They _couldn't_ have forgiven him for that. Not completely.

But whether they did or not, whether the Planet knew what It was doing or not, he was starting to very much look forward to being sent back. The directionless, swirling green of the Lifestream was starting to make his head ache and his stomach flip with impending nausea.

At long last - _far_ too long, as Sephiroth's now-lurching stomach complained - Aerith opened her eyes and looked to Sephiroth.

"Are you ready?" she asked, voice her usual calm tone, though this time it sounded odd; as if more than one voice - many voices, in fact - were coming from her mouth at the same time, and her eyes blazed Lifestream-green.

He nodded, clenched his jaw as that little motion sent his world spinning. The sooner he was out of the swirling green and standing somewhere _stable_ , the better! "Yes," he managed to say, though he did so through clenched teeth, unwilling to open his mouth and risk embarrassing himself. Could he even _be_ sick there? Or would he have kept on feeling miserable like that until he dissolved into the green? He tried to push that thought away. He was leaving, so it wasn't going to be an issue.

At least, not until the next time he ended up there.

"All right, then," she said, again with that strange multi-voice. "Here we go."

One moment he was standing there by Zack and Aerith, Zack giving him a little grin and 'see ya later' wave. The next, swirling green closed in around him. He felt himself lifted, cradled in a feeling of warmth the likes of which he'd never known yet still roused latent instinct deep within that made him relax, to soak up the warm comfort. He felt the movement change; no longer an easy drift but a rush in one direction - if there _was_ such a thing as directions in the Lifestream - moving ever faster, so fast that he couldn't see anything but that same nauseating blur all around him. He was compressed, squashed down to a fraction of his size even as he was pulled apart and scattered all across the cosmos. Oddly enough, it brought to mind the impression of being sucked down a giant cosmic drain and spit out the other side.

Just before he came back together with an abrupt _snap_ , his feet landing on something solid for the first time, he heard small, soft, delicate Aerith mumble two little words that shook him to the core.

"Oh, _shit_."


	4. Chapter 4

He hadn't even fully opened his eyes when his senses screamed _Danger, closing fast!!_ He turned on instinct, barely noticing that his speed seemed unchanged, brought his hands up even as he called the Masamune to him. It was only _after_ the hard clang of sword against sword rang out that he remembered that the calling-Masamune thing was one of the differences between him and other SOLDIERs. If he hadn't had access to that ability, he would already have been on his way back to the Lifestream.

He looked up, for his attacker had come at him from the air, and the first thing he saw was the enormous sword crossed with his. It wasn't Angeal's — _Zack's_ — Buster, the design was almost completely different, but it was just as big, just as heavy, and just as sharp. He kept looking, turning his gaze to the owner of that weapon, and felt his heart sink.

Just beyond the huge chunk of sharpened metal were a pair of angry blue eyes and a mess of untamable blond spikes. Zack's little grunt friend, Cloud. The one who had defeated him first at the reactor at Mount Nibel, then managed to send him back to the Lifestream after he had pulled that Meteor stunt at Jenova's command. From this close, he could see the Mako dancing in the blue - and was that something else, some shadow lurking within? - could see the other man's eyes contract momentarily into the vertical slits he used to see in the mirror every morning before going back to their usual rounds.

"Cloud," he acknowledged. His thoughts raced; he had no desire to fight the blond. Being face-to-face with his killer brought no unforeseen repulsion to the fore. As he'd discovered while floating in the endless green of the Lifestream, he still bore no resentment for that fact. Was actually grateful. He hadn't really been himself by that point, after all, and he'd had more than enough of dancing to someone else's pulls on his strings while at Shinra's command.

The thing that he'd become at her command, with no real thoughts of his own, had needed to be put down. He'd have done it himself if there had been enough of himself left to realize what was going on.

He put a little more force behind the Masamune, flung Cloud away, trying to put some space between them to give himself time to think of a way out, a way to show the blond that he was not the same Sephiroth he'd fought before, only to have him come at him once again, sword swinging with deadly intent.

"Sephiroth!" came the rage-filled reply.

Sephiroth defended, trying to get another glimpse at those bright blues, trying to see if that shadow was really there or if he had just imagined it. He was forced to pay more attention to the fight, to attack as well as defend, though, when Cloud actually almost nicked him. Zack's little friend, it appeared, had gotten _good_.

But that shadow in his eyes _was_ there, and only grew more obvious the longer the fight dragged on.

Sephiroth had no choice but to draw the only conclusion he could based on the limited evidence he had.

Jenova.

The evil space alien had sunk her insidious mind-tentacles into the blond and now controlled him like she had Sephiroth. He wondered briefly what lies she had used to lure him to her, what she had promised to get one who'd opposed her so strongly to fight _for_ her instead.

Blue-green eyes narrowed, and he took up the fight with renewed vigor. He would not let Jenova win. Cloud had saved him from her influence by killing him, and his honor demanded that he do no less for the blond. Perhaps the Planet would even do what it had for him and send the cleansed blond back as well.

He could only hope.

And fight.

Settling in for a serious fight now, with the blond's very soul at stake, Sephiroth went on the offensive.

The blond was good. Very good, and actually managed to block most of his attacks. Sephiroth couldn't help the urge to taunt Jenova, knowing how much she must have been seething at seeing him there, fighting against her new puppet, he himself completely free of her influence. In accordance with his training, though, he called her by Cloud's name, unwilling to give up whatever advantage the surprise of that knowledge might be able to give him later. If he needed a split second of hesitation from her later on in the fight, surely the shock of finding out he'd known it was her all along would do it.

But it didn't work out that way.

He'd gotten used to being the fastest during his life, thanks to his extensive modifications, and thanks to the fight having started barely a moment into his return, he hadn't realized that he was just the tiniest fraction slower than he had been.

And Cloud was _very_ good.

It happened so suddenly he didn't even realize he'd been hit, that he had actually _lost_ , until he found himself floating in mid-air, the Masamune fallen from his hand, the fragments of Cloud's sword poised all around him. Then the little blond was there, slicing him over and over as he just gaped at him. Not his brightest moment, by any means, but he couldn't believe he'd actually _lost_.

_'I'm sorry, Zack,'_ he thought even as he saw Cloud speeding nearer, last sword poised for the killing blow. _'I tried. I really did.'_

The last blow struck.

For a while longer he floated there, upright now, blood sliding down his body to drip to the ground far below, to puddle in his boots. He didn't know when his wing had popped out of hiding but when it wrapped around him even as consciousness faded, he found comfort in it. He let the darkness rise up and take him, his last promise echoing in his head.

_I will never be a memory, and I will never be yours again, Jenova._


	5. Chapter 5

He regained consciousness for the second time, surprised to find himself lying in what seemed to be an alleyway somewhere on Gaia and not back in the swirling green nausea-inducing monotony that was the Lifestream as he had more than half-expected.

He had been defeated, he knew he had. He could still recall - with a _much_ clearer memory than he would like - Jenova-Cloud's final attack, and those six swords slicing through his flesh one after the other. He remembered hanging suspended in the air afterwards. Remembered wrapping himself in his wing. Then everything faded away. He had thought he was dying.

Again.

Apparently, he'd been wrong.

But this place was definitely _not_ where that last battle had taken place. How, then, had he gotten from _there_ to _here_ while he was unconscious?

And _why_ , by all the gods, had he dumped himself down in a filthy alley beside a dumpster like so much garbage?

He moved a little in preparation for getting up, only to freeze as the pain he'd somehow been managing to ignore forced its way to the forefront of his mind and informed him that _no_ , he was not going anywhere and _yes_ , those grievous sword-wounds that he'd acquired in the fight with Cloud _were_ still there, thank you very much.

Lying back down, cold sweat breaking out on his brow, he cast a quick glance down at his bracelets, unsurprised to find the Materia slots empty. He didn't think that the Planet would send him back Materia and all, but he would have liked to have his Mastered Heal just then. Now what was he supposed to do? He'd never had to do completely without the healing powers of Materia before and though he could vaguely remember having attended a couple of lessons on Materia-less field medicine during the course of his SOLDIER training, damned if he could remember anything useful just then.

He knew that he had to stop the bleeding; that was basic enough. What he _couldn't_ remember was how exactly to do that when the wounds in question were seven huge gaping sword wounds. Usually he'd just go for the Materia, but....

There was a noise at the far end of the alleyway, the end that let out onto what was apparently a moderately busy street, and he looked up even as he became very still. He didn't know who it was; for all he knew it could be Jenova-Cloud coming to finish him off. Again.

But it wasn't.

Instead of the eternally youthful, familiar compact frame and untamable blond spikes, there was a man. He wasn't much to look at; dressed just like any other citizen of the city, of average height and weight, with dark hair in a slightly grown-out cut over a forgettable face. In all, he was someone you'd never really be able to pick out of a crowd.

The man walked further into the alleyway. As he came nearer, Sephiroth could see that he was carrying a bag of trash, presumably to put in the dumpster the former General was lying beside.

There was no way he could hide. Even if he _had_ been capable of getting up, which he was not too sure about, if he was to move now, the motion would only call more attention to him. All he could do was lie still and quiet, hope against hope that he wouldn't be noticed, and that if he _was_ , that the other man would be more inclined to help him than to finish what Jenova-Cloud had started.

\--

Erik stomped down the alley towards the dumpster, garbage bag swinging from one fist. While he was glad that the famous AVALANCHE group led by Cloud Strife had shown up to fight the two silver-haired children-stealing goons and the Bahamut and shadow-monsters that had been summoned in the plaza, the destruction they left behind made all of Edge want to bang their head against the nearest wall. Assuming that said wall had been left standing, which was at this point unlikely. That bunch got the job done, but the mess they left behind when they did was staggering.

He got to the dumpster, lifted the lid and tossed in the garbage. He didn't know what it was that made him glance to the side even as he let the lid drop with a heavy metallic clang. Maybe it was the scurrying of a stray cat or some other vermin, or maybe a stray beam of light just happen to glance off a slowly-creeping red stream that was coming from around the far side of the bin. Whatever it was, it caught his attention and he looked.

The first thing he saw was the toe of a boot. That was odd in itself. The boot appeared to be in pretty good shape, almost new, in fact. Leaning out a little, he saw its mate lying slightly closer to the alley wall, looking equally new. Who would throw out a perfectly good pair of boots? Granted, they were speckled with little rusty-colored specks he could only guess were blood, but that was nothing that wouldn't come off the smooth leather with a good wipe-down. Ah, well. One man's idiocy is his own gain; he'd take them and sell them at one of the shops. Surely one of them would give him good money for them after he cleaned them.

He took a step closer, one hand already reaching for them, and froze. Attached to those boots was an equally leather-clad pair of legs, partially covered by a long flowing black leather coat, but still visibly covered with a disturbing amount of still-shiny red. Blood.

Had someone been mugged then dumped there? But who would mug a person and leave those boots behind? The coat would have been worth quite a bit, too, but it was more hole than whole, sliced in numerous places by sharp-edged cuts that had obviously been made by an extremely sharp blade.

He slowly edged nearer. He'd seen more than enough dead bodies in the plaza, helped haul away more than his fair share, and wasn't looking forward to seeing yet another one.

Then he caught sight of the man - for he could see now that it was definitely a man - and came to an abrupt stop. For a long moment he stared, struck dumb by the sight. And it wasn't the grievous wounds he could see that fazed him; not after the past few years.

Back in Shinra's glory days, that part of Edge had been part of the very outskirts of Midgar. As such, they had done as they did everywhere they ruled and plastered the area with propaganda meant to inspire people to join their armies, and to tell them how great the vast Shinra empire was. They'd had whole crews of people whose only task was the constant posting of their latest flyers, bulletins, and recruiting posters.

When Shinra all but fell and Midgar was turned into so much scrap metal those crews didn't exist anymore and the last postings were mostly just left hanging on the walls and billboards, a tribute to past glories.

There was one on the wall beside the dumpster.

It was much-faded and weather-worn, but still recognizable as a recruiting poster featuring the infamous Silver General, the photo taken at some point during the Wutai conflict. Sephiroth wore his usual attire, his hair flowing out behind him in a silver veil as he spun, his ridiculously long sword bloody to the hilt yet still somehow managing to gleam even through that. That was one of the most famous - or infamous - of Shinra's Generals. The one who had defeated Wutai. The one who had been said to be undefeatable. The one who tried to destroy the world with Meteor, who had managed to destroy Midgar, if indirectly.

The same one who was lying on the filthy ground next to the dumpster, staring up at him with eerie blue-green eyes, body cut and slashed, his blood pooling around him on the filthy asphalt. The black-feathered wing was new, but the body attached to it was obviously Sephiroth. Maybe Gaia had decided to mark him as the monster he was.

"Son of a _bitch_."

And now that he got a look at all that long, silver - if a bit dirtied and bloodied - hair, he was reminded of those two strangers from the plaza. The ones who had stolen the children, done something to them that made their eyes strange and they themselves not respond even to their own family. The ones who had called the shadow-monsters and let them loose on Edge, who had most likely also summoned the Bahamut. _Their_ hair had been silver. Come to think of it, they'd been dressed in skin-tight black leather, too.

Erik put two and two together, coming up with black and blue and gallons of bright red blood.

There was no way that the three of them all shared those distinguishing characteristics - who else had real silver hair that _wasn't_ from old age? - and were _not_ connected somehow. And since Sephiroth - Sephiroth who lay battered, weakened and bleeding on the ground in front of him - was oldest, it was only logical that he'd been behind the whole thing.

And even if he _wasn't_ , Erik had lost friends and family to Meteor, as had every single person he knew in Edge.

Dark eyes darkened even more as fury sank its vengeful claws into him, filling his mouth with a rush of the bitter acid taste of revenge. He smiled down into blue-green kitty-eyes.

It was _not_ a nice smile.

" _Bastard_ son of a bitch."


	6. Chapter 6

The sky was a broad expanse of clear, cloudless blue. Bahamut-SIN had been taken care of. The clones had been given a one-way trip to the Lifestream. The kids, Marlene, Denzel, and the rest of AVALANCHE were all fine. _Cloud_ was fine, had even cracked a smile. Granted, it wasn’t a huge, face-eating smile, but this was _Cloud_. The guy who could give Vincent a run for his money in the ‘angst’ category.

Right. Everyone was fine, the Shera had taken only minimal damage when the two last clones had blown themselves up, he had a cigarette at his lip and a fresh pack in his pocket.

Life, as far as one Cid Highwind, airship pilot, was concerned, was good.

He walked down one of the main streets in Edge, taking in the clean-up and restoration work that was now well under way after the encounter with Bahamut. It seemed to be going well; troops of WRO soldiers everywhere, both directing the efforts of the citizens and workers and pitching in wherever they were needed. Reeve had done a good job with them; they were meant to be there to help the people, and they were. And the people themselves seemed to like them, though that might have something to do with the fact that the troops were actively helping them and not just there to order them around and otherwise just sit there threateningly like the Shinra troops used to do.

He took a random turn down onto one of the side streets on Edge’s Midgar side and kept walking. There were fewer troops down that road, though he passed a WRO patrol every now and then as they kept watch for any monsters that might wander in from either the Wastelands or the ruins of Midgar. There weren’t as many normal people about, either, but it was more because they were out going about their regular business than because they were hiding. It was nice to see it, and he felt a warm glow of pride as he realized that it was at least in part thanks to AVALANCHE and him that they could do so, that they were still there, still alive, and not killed by Meteor or Sephiroth or clones.

There were few people out on that street and that made it all the more obvious when he heard the angry shouts of many voices and walked down a curve in the road and came in sight of one of the many little plazas that dotted Edge with little round parks filled with real growing grass, flowers, and saplings.

No one was admiring the gardens that day.

The crowd was gathered off to one side of the plaza, near the mouth of what might have been an alley between two buildings. There must have been a few dozen people there, all looking inward, shouting and cursing. All of them pushed and shoved, trying to get closer to the middle, either wanting to actively participate in whatever was going on or get a better view. It was only when one of the men in the crowd was pushed back from the middle enough by the others that Cid could get a clear glimpse of him that he realized that something was seriously wrong and that maybe he should break it up. Whatever they were doing, it had ended up with that man liberally splashed with fresh blood.

He eyed the crowd - mob, really – and measured what he saw against his own abilities, coming up short. He would need help to get this under control.

Turning, he jogged back up the road in search of one of those roving WRO patrols. He met up with one several blocks away; almost back to the main street he’d originally turned off of.  They followed him back as soon as he told them about the mob, sending one of their group for backup.

Once they got back to the plaza, Cid waded straight into the mess, leaving the WRO soldiers to figure out their own tactics as he pushed and shoved his way quickly into the thick of it, glad he never went anywhere without his spear. He’d need it if he was going to be able to hold the crowd off from himself and the unknown person at the heart of the mob long enough for the WRO to subdue or disperse them.

He was quickly within a few ranks of the middle, could catch tiny glimpses of whoever it was that the mob was working over, could see the people ahead kicking, using lengths of board or pipe or chain to land blows. He could hear the dull thuds of those blows landing, a stomach-churning percussion. Another blow, a pipe descending, then he heard the dry crack of breaking bone, followed quickly by a breathless scream from the previously-quiet victim and the bloodthirsty roar of the crowd. One man, the one who had struck the blow, reached down, coming back up with – a fistful of long, ragged and bloody black feathers?

What the-?

Before he had a chance to think about it, he reached the front row. He barely had time to see yet another man reach down, a knife flashing in one hand as he cut at not the victim’s throat but the fistful of hair he’d grabbed in his other hand. As quickly as he could, he activated the Barrier Materia equipped in his spear, leaving him and the victim in the middle of a tiny circle of calm surrounded by a mob that was even more angry now that it couldn’t get at its intended target.

Satisfied that they were safe for the moment, that the barrier would hold at least until the WRO got there, Cid turned his attention to the man he had saved and froze, momentarily seized by the urge to put his spear to work again, with the business end this time.

Lying there on the bloody asphalt was the man they had chased all over the planet for almost a year, the man who had been trying to destroy them all with Meteor. The man he’d seen Cloud defeat not a week ago. A man he’d recognize anywhere after having gone through all that bullshit.

Sephiroth.

Goddamn it! The man just wouldn’t _die!_

But though his head was telling him it might be better if he just finished off the bastard right then and there, the observations he was making even then would not let him.

One thing that people seemed to forget about him, seeing just the gruff airship captain side of him, was that he hadn’t always _been_ Captain, and that despite his having joined Cloud and AVALANCHE in their little quest to save the planet from Sephiroth and Meteor, he’d been Shinra. He’d signed up with Shinra’s air force the second he was old enough, and had been through the same training as every other idiot that joined. He’d served on an airship during the Wutai war. Not as pilot, but he’d been there. He’d been there as they flew air support for the Silver General and his troops. He’d seen the sheer destruction that Sephiroth could dish out. He’d seen him injured, for not even the General could get through such a rule-less conflict unscathed. Had seen him shrug off wounds that would have dropped most men and keep right on fighting until either there were no more enemies or enough backup arrived that he could spare the time he needed to Full Cure.

And, having seen that, he knew that something was different about the man, knew that he would give him the benefit of the doubt if nothing else, when he saw him lying there on the bloody asphalt with his arms wrapped protectively over his head, legs drawn up a little, probably as much as he could manage just then, big black wing lying limp and partially covering him. His face was hidden, his trademark knee-length hair a ragged, shortened mess at his nape, the rest of it in the fist of one of the men just outside the barrier. He couldn’t see his face, but Cid knew beyond all doubt that this was Sephiroth. The wing, the silver hair, the size of him, and that all-too-familiar trademark outfit said it quite plainly, no matter how sliced up and bloody.

If _that_ wasn’t enough to tell him that something was different about him, that this wasn’t the same man they had fought against, the fact that the mob that had been pounding him into the pavement was still alive definitely was; the Sephiroth they had fought would have sliced them all to bits without batting an eye.

Well, _shit_.

Now what?

His decision was made, quick as that, when he took a closer look at that wing. He saw the bare spots where feathers had been ripped out. Saw the spot where it abruptly folded in the wrong direction; undoubtedly the break that had inspired that strangled scream he’d heard earlier. 

He was a pilot, an airship captain. He’d always wanted to fly, for as long as he could remember. It was more than he could do to let the damage go untended, no matter who the wing was attached to. He couldn’t leave it like that, couldn’t let the gift of flight be stolen away from anyone. Not with knowing how much it would kill him to be grounded himself.

A soft sigh and roll of his eyes at his own stupidity, then he reached for his Materia.

\--

Sephiroth was barely hanging on to consciousness when the mob vanished from around him.

As he’d feared, the man who had found him in the alley by the dumpster hadn’t taken well to him at all. He’d been given no chance to speak, no time to explain, when the man had reached out, grabbed him by one ankle, and dragged him from the alley, calling out to passers-by as he did.

The tugging at his wounds as his leg was pulled, the pain of them scraping against the ground, coupled with the blood loss, was enough to reduce his attempts to get away to feeble twitches and clawing at the asphalt that did nothing but tug more at his wounds and scar the fingers of his gloves.

By the time they’d reached the mouth of the alley, a small crowd had gathered. He heard the questioning murmuring of the crowd turn to angry shouting as the realization of who he was passed among them.

His first instinct was to push the pain from his wounds to the back of his mind, to get up, to get _away_ , to go somewhere where he could hide until his wounds healed at least a little, to figure out why his Masamune hadn’t come when he’d tried to call it when the man had first reached for him.

But he didn’t move.

As they closed in around him, angry and screaming, as the first blows landed, then more when they saw that he would not fight back, he did nothing but try to curl in on himself in a weak, instinctual effort to protect his vulnerable underside.

As the kicks and blows rained down, he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe _that_ was why the Planet had sent him back. So that he could be punished by those he had hurt, by the families and friends of those who hadn’t survived his insane rampage. And so he didn’t fight back, didn’t defend, just let them do as they wanted, knowing that he didn’t deserve any better. He bit his lip as he felt kicks fall on the gouges Jenova-Cloud had left him with, as he felt first one rib crack, then another. A hard kick to the abdomen almost made him throw up, even though he knew that there was nothing in his stomach to expel. He felt something – a pipe, maybe? – smash into one of his arms; it gave a tiny snap as something in it broke even as his head rang from the part of the hit he _couldn’t_ keep away.

The fact that he managed to keep mostly quiet despite the damage being done only seemed to make them angrier, but pride kept him quiet. His lip was split and bloody where his teeth dug in, but he kept the noises back.

At least until someone pinned his wing to the ground with a booted foot then brought something down on the bone hard enough for it to snap in two with a loud crack.

Most of his voice stolen by the sheer rush of pain from the limb he should never have had, his strangled scream was still enough to delight those around him and he knew in that moment that he would most likely be seeing Zack and Aerith again soon enough, though it would most likely be far too long for comfort.

He felt hands on his wing, pulling and tugging it this way and that, yanking out feathers whole handfuls at a time. He felt someone grab him by the hair, then had his head yanked out from under the shield of his arms, the hold pulling him up, baring his throat even as it wrenched his head back. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a glint of light off a blade.

To his surprise, it was not promptly drawn across his throat like he had thought it would be. He felt instead a harsh tugging at the back of his head then he fell back to the ground as the hold on his hair was suddenly gone. It was only when he felt the ragged ends stirring in a faint breeze that he realized it was not the grip that was gone, but his hair.

Shocked from the sudden realization, it took him longer than he would admit to notice that not only was his hair gone, but so were the blows that had been falling on him like some sort of hateful, painful rain. He could still hear the crowd shouting all around him, but for some reason, they couldn’t reach him. He peeked out from beneath the shield of his raised arms and saw, between him and the boots of the angry crowd, the faint shimmer that he associated with a Barrier. But who…?

He heard the scuff of boots on asphalt, then the stink of cigarette smoke drifted to his nose. A quiet curse drifted to his ears, then his unexpected savior crouched next to him. He felt the warm rush of a mid-level Cure spell flow through him, his wounds starting on the healing process with a feeling he always compared to an itch, only on the inside where no amount of scratching could satisfy it. He relaxed slightly, a bit reassured that he was safe enough for the time being; surely if they were going to kill him, they wouldn’t have wasted their energy healing him first.

That slight assurance fled with a yelp when he felt big hands grab hold of his wing. The pain that shot through him as they moved it, the broken bones grating together sickeningly, sent him gratefully into the arms of oblivion.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seem to always be apologizing for taking so long to get chapters out. Suffice to say, it hasn't been a good year. I lost 2 of my kids at the end of January (no, not from the Virus of Doom), actually couldn't speak for over a week, and am still trying to scrape my headspace back together. Muses fled, and when they came back they sere dark. And I mean _dark_. Like the darkest fic I've posted and then some. Got a couple of very dark wips that probably won't see the light of day out of it, and some work on Interrupt, but not much else writing-wise.
> 
> Hoping putting this little bit out there will start up the good side of the Muses.
> 
> On a lighter note, I got my copy of FFVII Remake Wednesday and already have over 14 hours in (and it's only Friday morning, lol!)... there is _no_ way there's not a million tons of Seph/Cloud coming our way soon! XD

Cid cursed as he examined the broken wing, knowing almost instantly that it was beyond his own ability to deal with. If it had been part of an airship, or hell, _anything_ other than something that was a part of a living, breathing being, he could have fixed it. This, though. The bone was broken in two, and while he felt confident enough in setting most broken bones, these were _wing_ bones. If he set them even the slightest way off, they could heal wrong, crippling the wing, and the man might never fly again. He’d have to wait until someone better qualified could deal with it. 

That decided, he looked at the rest of the body before him, checking the wounds only haphazardly hidden behind slashed leather, and was pleased by their rate of healing. He cast another mid-level Cure and saw those wicked slices on his torso finally start to close up. Really, now. It was hard enough dealing with someone who was wounded _without_ having to worry that his guts might fall out at any time.

He didn’t know how long he’d been there, dealing with this, patching that, trying to keep the wing still so that the ragged ends of broken bone wouldn’t tear through the skin and make an already bad break worse. He was barely aware as the crowd-noise slowly, steadily died off.

“Uh, Captain Highwind?” a voice called from somewhere behind him.

Cid looked up from his patient at the call, his hands bloody to the elbow, and glanced back over his shoulder. “What is it?” he growled.

“We’ve got the mob contained, sir,” came the reply from the red-capped WRO officer. “We’ve also got medics standing by for the victim, sir, if you would take down the Barrier.”

“Oh, right,” Cid said. He grabbed his spear, then dispelled the Barrier. Almost as soon as it was down, a trio of uniformed men rushed over, only to stop dead and raise their weapons at the sight of the man lying unconscious on the ground before them. Cid, it seemed, was not the only one who could recognize the former General on sight. “Now, I don’t know what’s going on with him, but he’s not dangerous right now.”

“Sir, with all due respect, that’s-”

“I know who it is!” he growled. “It’s goddamn Sephiroth! I know that! I also know that, wounded or not, if he had wanted to he could have taken out that crowd and not broken a sweat. He didn’t. He lay there and let them beat the shit out of him. If that doesn’t earn him at least a chance to explain himself, I don’t know what would!”

The red-capped officer hesitated, then nodded. At his cue, the medics continued forward, then knelt to tend to their new patient.

Backing out of the way, Cid watched as they started working to get him stable enough to move to the medical facilities at WRO headquarters. “And watch out for the wing,” he couldn’t help but add, “it’s broken and needs special care. Maybe some kind of bird-doctor.”

 

 

For the second time in as many awakenings, Sephiroth was surprised to find himself still alive, still somewhere on Gaia, and not back in the Lifestream’s nauseating greenness. Maybe _that_ was part of his punishment? Maybe the Planet didn’t _want_ him floating around in its Lifestream and so he was doomed to be killed over and over and yet never die?

Too bad that a lack of pain was obviously missing from that death-exemption.

His body sore and aching all over, feeling like he was made of lead and stone for all that he could force himself to move just then, Sephiroth lay still and tried to figure out where he had ended up _this_ time.

The lack of the stink of old garbage told him that he was not in another alley, as did the slight softness of whatever it was he was lying on. It wasn’t asphalt, concrete, or metal; he could tell that much at least by the way it lightly cushioned his battered body.

In the end it was the nose-burning stink of _chemical_ and _sterile_ , along with the mind-numbing regular beeping from something nearby that told him that he was once again trapped in one of his least favorite places; either a lab or a hospital.

It was the lack of new pain – and the lessening of old – that convinced him that it was the latter. His eyelids like lead weights, unwilling to obey him and open, it was the only conclusion he could come to without more information.

It took him many long moments to recognize the feeling of a needle violating his arm, a thin tube running under his nose, the heaviness of thick wrappings and casts around his fractured forearm and ribs, his wing out and spread across the length of another bed, splinted and wrapped. Thin sheets did next to nothing to protect him from the room’s chill, nor did the flimsy bed shirt he had been dressed in. He could tell that he had been Cured at least a few more times, the sword-wounds no longer gaping wide and baring his insides to public view. If he had to, he knew he would be physically capable of getting himself at least far enough away to find a place to hide until he was well enough to escape entirely. That, at least, was reassuring.

What _wasn’t_ , though, was the fact that now that he was pulling more and more of his consciousness together, he could tell that the heavy numbness that had been so comforting after the sharp _ow!_ of before was not natural, that it was dripping into him drop by drop along with whatever else they were pumping into him via the IV in his arm.

Also not comforting were the cold metal shackles he could now feel circling his wrists and ankles, binding him to the bed beneath him, presumably to prevent his escape.

Was he back in the lab after all? Was Hojo waiting in the wings with more tests, more experiments, more torture for his favorite lab rat?

But no; jumbled memories told him that Cloud and his little group of misfits had ended Hojo’s reign of terror, slicing him up into more bits and pieces than any sane person would care to contemplate. Sephiroth savored the mental image, lips curling upwards in a faint smile even as he lamented that he had not been the one to cause it. 

The beeping from the machine near his head increased slightly with his heartbeat, then made another sound. Almost immediately a thick wave of grogginess rolled over him and he knew that the machine was somehow connected to the IV feed, and that it had just decided that he needed to go back to sleep.

He didn’t want to, didn’t want to _ever_ be unconscious and vulnerable in anything even _vaguely_ reminiscent of the labs of his nightmares, but weakened as he was he didn’t really have a choice.

Oblivion opened up and welcomed him again.

 

 


End file.
